Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Interior
Nothing you might see elsewhere in Iceland prepares you for the stark,
desolate, raw beauty of the barren upland plateau (500-900m) that is the
Interior
(known in Icelandic as
hálendið
or “highlands”), Europe's last true
wilderness. The strength and unpredictability of the elements here means
that Iceland's heart is a desolate and uninhabited place, with no towns or
villages, just cinematic vistas of seemingly infinite grey gravel plains, glacial
rivers and lavafields punctuated only by ice caps, volcanoes and jagged
mountains. Sheep are virtually the only living things that manage to
survive here, but pasture and vegetation, where they do exist, comprise
only scattered clumps of ragged grass, and it's a daunting task for the
farmers who venture out into this no-man's-land to round up their livestock
every autumn.
Historically, routes through the Interior were forged in Viking times as a shortcut for
those making the journey on horseback to the annual law-making sessions at Þingvellir,
though the region later provided refuge - if you can call it that - for
outlaws
, who are
said to have been pardoned in the unlikely event that they managed to survive here for
twenty years. Today, with the advent of the Ringroad and internal flights, the need to
traverse this area has long gone, and there are
no sealed roads
, just tracks marked by
stakes, and hardly any bridges across the rivers, causing some hairy moments when they
are forded.
The Interior's
weather
is Iceland at its most elemental. Not only can fierce winds
whip up the surface layer of loose grit in a matter of seconds, turning a beautiful
sunny spell into a blinding haze of sand and dirt, but snowstorms are common even
in July and August. The summer here is very short indeed, barely a matter of weeks,
the winter long and severe, when the tracks are blocked by deep snowdrifts and
closed to traffic.
The mainstay of
accommodation
in the Interior is the network of huts, or
sæluhús
,
run by Iceland's hiking associations. The better ones have self-catering facilities and
running water, though all sleeping space is in dorms and you'll need to bring your own
sleeping bag. The huts are very busy during summer, and it's essential to book in
advance; see accounts for contact details. If you're
camping
, you need a high-quality
tent with enough pegs to anchor it down in the ferocious winds that can howl
uninterrupted across the Interior. See Basics for more information.
Of all the various tracks, only two
routes
across the Interior
actually traverse the
whole way between north and south Iceland. The most dramatically barren of these is
Sprengisandur
(Route F26), which crosses between the Hekla area in the south and
Lake Mývatn in the north. The alternative is
Kjölur
(Route 35), from Gullfoss to near
Blönduós, which has less dramatic scenery but is the only route on which you might be
able to use normal cars.
Other routes lead into the Interior but don't offer a complete traverse. The western
Kaldidalur
route (Route 550) runs between Borgafjörður and Þingvellir (see p.99); east
of Lake Mývatn; the F88 follows the course of the mighty Jökulsá á Fjöllum south to
8
Eyvindur and Halla
p.312
The Kjölurvegur trek
p.313
